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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24386278">All Dead</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilwriter37/pseuds/evilwriter37'>evilwriter37</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Psychological Torture, Torture, Whump, death mention, hiccup!whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:20:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,675</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24386278</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilwriter37/pseuds/evilwriter37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hiccup is captured by Krogan and he’s told that his friends are all dead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All Dead</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“It’s okay if you’re scared of dying. Your friends were too.” Krogan’s voice was soft, as if it was supposed to soothe Hiccup, but his words struck him through with both terror and anger and shock. His friends? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Dead?! </span>
  </em>
  <span>No, no! They couldn’t be! They couldn’t be!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re lying.” Hiccup’s voice shook. He’d been stuck in this cage for about a week now, and he hadn’t seen any of his friends in this cave system that he appeared to be in. That didn’t mean that they were dead though, did it? Krogan </span>
  <em>
    <span>must </span>
  </em>
  <span>be lying to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Krogan shook his head, laughed a little. He had his halberd resting against Hiccup’s cage.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not lying, Hiccup. Your friends are dead, and you will be next.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hiccup screamed in rage. He stood, hit his bound hands against the bars of the cage. That hurt, but he didn’t care. No, no! This couldn’t be the truth!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Krogan just laughed at him. He picked up his halberd and left. Hiccup was alone in the room. He screamed again, hit his hands against the bars even harder, jarring pain through his hands and up into his arms. He looked at his hands, saw blood on them, but that didn’t matter. He had to get out, had to save his friends, had to prove Krogan wrong. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sat back down, breathing hard. There were tears in his eyes. His friends weren’t dead. They </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>be. They just </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>be. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another week passed. Hiccup didn’t see his friends for that time, and he was starting to believe Krogan’s words. The man tortured him in that time. Not for information. Just for fun, it seemed. He promised that he would kill him, but so far he’d made no move to do so. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And yes, Hiccup was afraid of dying. Why wouldn’t he be? What was there on the other side? Wouldn’t it hurt? What was he leaving behind? All of these questions made his head and chest ache, even while the rest of him burned with the cutting of a knife. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Would he be leaving his friends behind if he died? Or would he be seeing them again? Where was Toothless? Gods, was he dead too? Was everyone dead but him?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Those thoughts almost broke Hiccup, but he had to stay strong, had to find a way out. He had to rescue everyone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because they </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>be dead. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hiccup cried every night. He was hurting badly, inside and out. The thought of his friends being dead tormented him worse than Krogan’s knives and chains and whips. He lay in his cage, wanting to scream, but feeling too weak to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Dead, dead, dead. They can’t be, they can’t be.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Hiccup had not seen or heard any sign of them since their capture. The only news he’d gotten of them had been that they’d died, just like he was going to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So, Hiccup cried. He cried hard, making his body hurt even more than it already did. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His friends were dead. And he was going to join them. He didn’t know if that thought gave him solace or fear. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hiccup? Hiccup!” The familiar voice pulled Hiccup from his sleep. He blinked in confusion. For a moment, he’d thought he’d heard Astrid. But no, that couldn’t be right. She was dead, along with everyone else. He closed his eyes and decided he would try to go back to sleep. He must have been dreaming. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The cage opening, footsteps coming in. Those were familiar too, but they weren’t Krogan’s. Whose was it? Was he </span>
  <em>
    <span>still </span>
  </em>
  <span>dreaming? He had to be, because Astrid was dead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hiccup, wake up.” A gentle hand on his shoulder. Hiccup opened his eyes into dim light. He rolled over, looked at who had woken him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Astrid?” He almost wasn’t willing to believe it. Maybe this was just another one of Krogan’s games. Maybe he had drugged him and he was hallucinating, only seeing what he hoped to see. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Astrid put a hand to Hiccup’s face, and he looked past her, saw all his friends standing outside his cage. The dim light was coming from a lantern that Fishlegs held. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Gods, what has he done to you?” They all looked relatively unharmed. That was good. His hallucination wasn’t making him hurt anymore than he had to. But yes, this did hurt. It hurt because all his friends were dead and he was seeing them anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re not real,” Hiccup told her. It was the drugs in his system. It had to be. He couldn’t remember Krogan drugging him, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. The man wasn’t above drugging people. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Astrid drew back for a moment, looking astonished. “Hiccup, we are. All of us are. We’re here to rescue you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He told me you’re dead. And I haven’t seen you since. So you’re dead.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Astrid cocked her head. “What? Hiccup, we’re right here!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hiccup shook his head. He laid back down, curling into a ball. “You’re dead. You’re all dead.” Tears choked up his throat. “Dead, dead, dead.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hiccup, we’re not. Please, just come with us. We know where the dragons are. We can get out of here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can we?” Hiccup felt like he would be stuck here forever, or at least until he died too. He didn’t know when Krogan would kill him, when he would be done with his games. Drugging him and making him see his friends was cruel though, the cruelest thing he’d ever done.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes. Come on. Please come with us.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hiccup stood shakily, and Astrid helped him. Her touch was actually there, but he still didn’t believe it. He didn’t have any reason to. Then, he left the cage.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hiccup didn’t believe any of this was real until he was touching Toothless. He knew those scales, knew the sounds Toothless was making. This was all real! His friends </span>
  <em>
    <span>weren’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>dead!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I believe you,” he said, turning to his friends. They all had their dragons and were about to leave the cave system. “I-I’m sorry.” Hiccup shook his head, trying to clear it. “Krogan told me you were all dead. He’s been playing games with me. I thought I was drugged.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re not drugged,” Fishlegs said. “We’re real. We’re here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hiccup smiled, tears in his eyes. Though, they were happy tears, the first ones of their kind that he’d cried in a while. Recently, his tears had only been ones of pain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laid a hand on Toothless’ head. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The opposition they faced upon their escape was no match for their dragons, who had had enough of captivity and were ready to get in the air. Now, they were flying towards Dragon’s Edge. It hurt to be sitting on Toothless, but flying still felt good. Hiccup was free. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Free. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And he had his friends with him. Gods, he’d thought he was never going to see them again. But here they all were, surrounding him on their dragons. It made him feel safe, happy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No one talked as they flew, knowing that there would be plenty of time to talk when they got back to the Edge. It was still night, and they were all tired. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Upon returning to the Edge, they had Hiccup take his shirt off and lay on one of the tables to be inspected. He was covered in various wounds, some older, some newer. Fishlegs got out the alcohol and the stitches. He didn’t have a very strong stomach, but he was the best healer they had. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He made you think we were all dead?” Snotlout asked. Hiccup winced as a cloth covered in alcohol was pressed to a wound in his abdomen. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Hiccup answered. His chest ached thinking of that. He’d spent so much time thinking they were dead. And yet here they were. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How did you not… break?” Ruffnut asked. For once, she and her brother were being serious. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think I did,” Hiccup responded honestly. There was no other explanation for the way he’d lost his will and anger, for the way he’d stopped fighting Krogan. “I believed it for so long, and I never saw any of you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We… we thought </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>were dead,” Astrid said. She was by Hiccup, holding one of his hands. That helped with the pain he was feeling. There were tears glimmering in her eyes. “He told us he’d killed you, that you’d begged him for death in the end.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That made Hiccup’s chest ache. So his friends had thought he was dead all this time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But you still came looking for me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tuffnut nodded. “Well, duh. We had to! We didn’t believe him for one second!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m… I’m sorry I believed him,” Hiccup said. He flinched a little as Fishlegs started with the first stitch, grunted. “He just repeated it, every time he was torturing me. I thought it was true.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m glad we’re all here together,” Fishlegs said. That made Hiccup smile despite the pain he was in. Yes, he was glad they were all here together too. He wasn’t dead, and neither were his friends. But…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are any of you hurt?” Hiccup asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not really,” Snotlout answered. “He didn’t really touch us. Kept us fed too, actually.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Huh.” Hiccup wondered what the point of that had been, wondered what the point of this whole captivity had been. He hadn’t asked him for information, not once, and based on the state of his friends, he hadn’t asked them either. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What is it?” Astrid asked. “You’ve got your thinking face on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m just wondering why he did all this,” Hiccup told them. “He didn’t try to get information out of me.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s sick,” Astrid said with a shake of her head. “He must have just been playing with us.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. He must have been.” The fact that they’d been made to think they were dead was pointing to that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But no one was dead. And they were all together. That was all Hiccup could ask for, all he ever needed. He had his friends with him. </span>
</p>
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